Mirror images
by shadowwriter01
Summary: We all live in several worlds. The reality like we know it is only is only one of many. Parallel worlds stories. A group of Autobots is watching over different timelines, everything is possible.
1. Chapter 1: timeline 1 & timeline 0

**Disclaimer:** The Transformers belong to hasbro

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><p><strong>Mirror-images<strong>

It was the landscape of Oregon in North America, the forests around the Mount Verona, one of the most beautiful areas in the USA.

Out of place In this picture were the two giant robots standing at the foot of the mountain.

One of the was Galvatron, a Decepticon leader from the future, who had traveled from the year 2006 back in time.

The other was Ultra Magnus, the most powerful Autobot warrior of the current time. Both of them stood against each other.

"Magnus", Galvatron yelled.

Ultra Magnus had met this visitor from the future before. Like many others had he tried to stop him and like all of them he failed. He knew that Galvatron was a threat to everything on this world. His strength and firepower surpassed every Transformer known today, except maybe Omega Supreme, by far.

Galvatron came back to this time to change the course of history according to his designs and everybody who stood in his way was as good as doomed. What Ultra Magnus didn´t knew was that Galvatron had on top of that fallen into complete madness since the last time they had met and was now completely unpredictable.

The insane Decepticon raised his cannon up and fired. Magnus was able to dodge the shot, but only barely. The missed blast ripped a large glowing crater into the ground and send a great part of the forest into flames. This one shot already caused incredible damage and devastated the countryside.

Magnus had been able to avoid the his enemy´s first attack. But now Galvatron was tackling him in a wild rage. The raving Decepticon grabbed him and was holding him down. Ultra Magnus saw now the insanity in Galvatron´s eyes, something that wasn´t there the last time they fought. He was desperately trying to get his arms free and point his gun at his enemy. Galvatron´s expression was a mask of rage. Ultra Magnus was fighting for his life and he knew it.

Finally he was able to rip his left arm lose and punched Galvatron hard in the face. While the Decepticon was thrown a few metres back, he didn´t slow down and reacted instantly and aimed his weapon at Magnus again. This time however, the Autobot was faster. He fired one of his shoulder missile launchers at Galvatron from only a few metres distance and hit him square on the chest. The future Decepticon was thrown down by the shot and his chest was smoking and seemed to be dented in.

He saw that Galvatron was lying motionless on the ground, seemingly knocked out. It seemed nearly too good to be true. Had he really won? Ultra Magnus stood in the burning forest over his downed enemy and he checked his own state. He realised that his chassis was dented by Galvatron´s grip and that his armour was torn apart at several places. Against Galvatron, he knew, it was nearly a wonder that he was **only** that damaged.

Suddenly Galvatron awakened again with a loud scream. Before Ultra Magnus could react, he pointed his weapon at him again and fired. This time there was no chance to evade that shot. Like Galvatron before, he was hit from only a short distance. Magnus felt how the particle blast burned and ripped into his outer armour, destroyed several of his systems and caused maximal damage.

A few moments later, Galvatron was standing over the mangled form of the Autobot. Ultra Magnus was one of the few who were strong enough to survive even such a hit.

"You have fought well Magnus, very well", Galvatron told him, "my respect, Autobot. But in the end, it was not enough."

He aimed at the neck of the Autobot and fired. Ultra Magnus head was blown off and fall into the grass beside him, while his dead body sank downward.

Galvatron stood for a while over his beaten enemy and laughed.

xxxxxxx

_Autobot outpost in the Katsh´ex star system at the edge of known space, _

_The earth year 2317 (time-line zero)_

Ultra Magnus was sitting in his office on board the space station. He had visited this facility and it´s crew a few times in the last years. A few Autobots and Maximals who were permanently stationed here for a single reason, to find and observe parallel universes that were somehow influenced by time travel or inter-dimensional transfers.

As phantastic and at the first look, absurd this purpose was, it had proofed several times to be completely justified.

Magnus had just red just red the data of the last file he had seen. He had to say, it was very unsettling to read about your own death.

xxx

All this had all started with the invention of the transwarp technology by Galvatron.

No, Magnus thought, it had actually already begun before that. The appearing of the mysterious time machine in the year 2011.

Cabal, a dangerous energy creature from another dimension, had used Vok technology to create a machine that could manipulate time and space. To complete his aims, he changed the time-line and caused a temporal chaos. The complete disaster was only closely avoided back then.

This machine was rumored to have delivered at least a few inspirations for the transwarp engine.

The next thing was the arrival of a Megatron, Skywarp, Thundercracker and Ravage from a parallel universe, only a few months later. This event was followed by one of the most devastating conflicts in history.

At the final end of the great war, the Autobots, the Decepticons and the humans agreed to outlaw the transwarp technology. Because of the immense potential for misuse and danger. All the previous incidents more than demonstrated the threat.

In the following centuries there were countless examples of attempts to manipulate time or reality.

The Predacon renegade who had named himself after Megatron and had tried to realize a long forgotten last resort plan of the old Decepticon leader to go back in time and assassinate Optimus Prime while he was still lying deactivated inside the arc was only the last recent one of those examples. Ironically the original indicator of that plan would have never approved of that plan anymore. The Matrix, which Optimus was carrying inside him the entire time was after all the key to defeating Unicron and risking to damage it in the past was the safest way to help him to win. But obviously the Predacon Megatron didn´t knew anything about this.

His plans however were stopped by an Maximal team led by Optimus Primal. Optimus against Megatron, Magnus had to smile about that thought.

Another example was as, a few vorn back, a corrupt Autobot emirate named Karus had illegally traveled to a parallel universe and tried to cause an inter-dimensional conflict. He too was stopped by the Transformers of this world and the natives of the other.

And this was by far not the only incident of that kind, by far not. It were dozens. Renegades, extremist groups or simply insane outsiders, they all were tempted to use the transwarp technology to twist time or alternate worlds to their own wishes.

It was a temporal war. A war of frightening dimensions.

Magnus remembered one report in particular, one that frightened him especially.

In one of the parallel worlds, Galvatron had, like in their own, achieved the plan to travel back into the year 1986 to escape Unicron´s influence over him. But in that world, instead of destroying the prototype time machine after a failed attempt, he used it again. Galvatron, as well as that Cyclonus and Scourge, went back into their past and staid there. Through failure in one of their time travels however, they accidentally caused a violent time space anomaly called the time storm, that had nearly swallowed their entire universe.

That version of Galvatron was finally confronted by an alliance of Autobots and Decepticons from past and future. In the end he was was destroyed by the time storm he had caused himself. But not after slaughtering dozens of Autobots and Decepticons in a mad rage. Over the years he had spend in the past, this Galvatron was overtaken more and more by insanity and became that what Unicron from the beginning intended him to be, a living machine of destruction.

He had gotten himself killed and nearly taken his entire universe with him, Magnus signed. After Galvatron, Cyclonus and Scourge had been destroyed and swallowed by the time storm, the future they came from had been erased and replaced with another. The life and existence of trillion over trillions of beings, whipped out and replaced in the blink of an eye and with only a few dozen individuals ever even knowing it.

That was exactly the sort of threat they were dealing with.

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><p>In this story are several references to other works. That means on one side the marvel comics and on the other my own fanfics. The first half of this chapter is in fact a variation of Galvatron´s and Magnus fight in the comic story "burning sky", one where Galvatron kills Ultra Magnus. Also the last of the "examples" Ultra Magnus brings up is a description of the Galvatron arc in the UK comics. That means everything from target 2006 to time wars.<p>

And there was of course the short description of the events in beast wars.

That was also mentioned were events from some of my other fanfic stories, time circle, Transwarp and evolution.


	2. Chapter 2: timeline 2: Empire

This story will be build up in the form that every new chapter will show a new time-line. For the next chapters at least, this time-lines will be mostly independent from each other. So this fanfic will be as much a line of different short stories as a single story.

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><p><strong>Chapter 2: Empire<strong>

The Decepticons had lost the great war. That was it what the history of Cybertron stated.

At least in their home galaxy, that statement was true.

Many of them however, had left Cybertron before the last battles of the war were even fought. Because their group left before the war was decided, they never truly lost.

Realising that the war had become senseless a long time ago, they decided to leave for the unknown regions of space to build up their own worlds without any interference from the Autobots.

But also the Decepticons themselves had changed. After 9 million years of war, after the destruction of entire worlds, after Unicron, the Quintessons, the transorganics, Cabal and countless other terrors, even many of the Decepticons had grown tired of war.

And they have learned from their experiences. They changed many of their agressive policies. Their allience with Lord Zarak´s nebulons and their binary bonding, had shown them the worth other species could have as allies and not only as subjects. The most of the worlds they colonised were not populated anyway and on the ones that were, they tried to in the most parts to come to an agreement with the natives and to recruit some of them as new head- target- and powermasters or as guards, technicians and workers. In the end, this faction of the Decepticons got the empire they had wanted, even if it looked completely different from what they had expected.

Despite all that, many of them asked themselves often how it had been if the Decepticons had actually won the war.

In one world, that question was actually answered. While in timeline 0, the assassination attempt on the Autobot leader Optimus Prime was prevented, here, the renegade who called himself after Megatron had succeeded.

xxx

"Megatron no", Optimus Primal called out.

"Too late Optimus", the Predacon renegade replied, "too late."

Megatron fired. His shot hit the Autobot leader Optimus Prime directly in the head. And in this world, the damage wasn´t able to be repaired.

In this world, the assasination attempt by the renegade leader was successful and as a result, the timeline changed. Everything what should have been was devoured by a time storm.

Optimus Prime was dead.

As the Transformers reawakened, millions of years later, the Autobots were without their leader. Disorganised and without a clear command, they could barely hold themselves against the Decepticons. Even worse was the moralic backlash for them. The Autobot who had been leading them for over five million years, was gone, killed without anybody truly realising how and when. Optimus didn´t go out in some glorious battle, like the most would have expected of him, he died in a space ship crash.

Nobody know exactly what had really happened, if the impact had killed him or if it was, something else. The cause of his death seemed to be a strange head wound, that nobody could really explain. Everybody remembered that Optimus had still been active and unwounded when the ship went down. It was thought that this had somehow happened during the crash, but as Ratchet stated, it didn´t really made sense. Some even speculated that a Decepticon assassin had sneaked into the ship and killed him when everybody was out. But why should such a assassin only kill Optimus and just let the other Autobots lay untouched and not reactivate the Decepticons when he had the chance. It didn´t really made sense. In the end it was only an attempt to explain afterwards what had happened.

After all this time, it was no longer possible to find out. Ultimately it wasn´t really important anyway. What mattered was that he was gone.

From the moment they had reawakened on earth, the Decepticons had the upper hand over their enemies

Even Megatron saw this situation with mixed feelings. His troops were now raiding the ressources of the planet earth. Soon they would be ready to completely revitalize Cybertron with energy and to fully charge all their troops.

They were winning the war.

The loss of Optimus Prime had brought Megatron over short or long to the road of victory. Despite that, a part of him was actually unsettled by Optimus mysterious and unexplained death.

And of course he regretted the fact that he wouldn´t have the chance to fight and kill Optimus Prime himself. His most dangerous enemy and sole competitor for five million years and in the end, his triumph over him was simply robbed from Megatron. Of course he wouldn´t let such silent regrets stand between him and victory.

Despite their fractured state, the Autobots on earth, under the leadership of Jazz and Prowl, were still fighting back and holding up resistence. For a time, they were able to delay the advance of the Decepticons. After five battles they had been completely defeated. Optimus Prime´s former Ark crew died, fighting till the last Bot.

In the following months, Megatron´s troops took control over the rest of the planet. Earth became a colony of the Decepticon empire. Over new build ships and space bridges, energon was transported to Cybertron.

The entire Decepticon army was reactivated and recharged to their full strength. Cybertron itself was revitalized to it´s state before the war. The last Autobots were hunted down and either killed or forced off planet. Less than two years after the Transformers were reactivated on earth, the great cybertronian war was over.

Under the leadership of Ultra Magnus, the last surviving Autobots fled into exile and left this part of the galaxy. Like some of the Decepticons in another world, they started anew there and build up a new world for themselves.

The Decepticons in their world on the other side, were by far not finished. After Cybertron and earth, they went out to conquer other planets. First were the planet Tlalaka, the relative primitive population was subjucated and put to work, next was a pre-industrial world named Tam and then followed some of the higher developed civilisations, Athenia and the robot world Lithone, all this worlds became part of the Decepticon empire, if the natives wanted or not.

At the planet Dredd they eliminated the monster named Chaos and then took control of this world.

On Monacus, one of the greatest criminal centres in the galaxy, they started an invasion. The ruling gangs and syndicats were disbanded, their bosses executed and their members send to prison worlds, the planet itself put under the rule of the empire.

Their expanse was only halted as they ran into the Quintesson race, that was the begin of a line of wars with them. The Quintessons, an ancient, half organic and half mechanical species, that was holding robots as slaves, turned out to be the greatest threat for the Decepticon empire since the Autobots.

But also they were defeated.

They, as it turned out were the aliens who ruled over Cybertron millions of years before and had enslaved the Transformers. Many Decepticons were enthralled about the idea to go to war against their former masters, seeing it as a strain on their history and vowted the complete destruction of their enemies.

The war against them took seven years. In the end however, the ressources and power of the Decepticon empire was to great. The Quintessons were losing ground more and more.

During the later half of the war, they made a decision concerning some of their "client worlds". The planets Lanark and Xintaxis had been at war with each other for centuries. Unknown to everyone, the Quintessons were playing them against each other, keeping the war going on and selling weapons to both sides.

But now the truth was slowly threatening to come out. The Quints feared that the two races that they have exploited for so long would now turn against them instead of fighting each other and with ungoing war with the Dcepticons, they could not afford another enemy, even less two. So they decided to attack both worlds with global weapons of mass destruction and exterminate the population. The surface of the planets was devastated, both races brought close to extinction.

For the Quintessons however, it made no difference in the end. Their fleets were destroyed, their Sharkticon armies decimated and they were about to be pushed back to their home system.

Megatron himself led the attack on Quintessa. After the last defending troops were destroyed, the home-world of their enemies was being burned down, every ship in orbit destroyed, every they found Quintesson killed. The few survivors fled out of known space.

With their victory over the Quintessons, the Decepticon empire was the strongest known force in the galaxy. Over a dozen major worlds were under their rule, hundreds of outposts and bases through known space, their influence reached over a great part of the universe and they were still growing.

xxx

But it wouldn´t last, Ultra Magnus knew.

The Cybertron of this world was destinied to be destroyed by Unicron.

xxx

In this world, the Matrix had survided the assassination of Optimus. It had even survived the millions of years it had been lieing dormant in the Ark and made it´s way back into the hands of the Autobots on Cybertron.

And as they had finally left the galaxy, they had taken it with them.

For that reason alone it would not be there when it was needed.

xxx

What Ultra Magnus didn´t knew, was that in his last moments, on his battleship, even Megatron was asking himself what could have been and what he could have done if things turned out differently.


	3. Chapter 3: timeline 3: peace

**Chapter 3: Peace**

There was also another, a completely different world.

Here the great war between the Autobots and the Decepticons, the conflict that was going on for nine million years and that ripped Cybertron apart…

…never happened.

After the liberation from the Quintessons and the end of the slavery, the worker and the warrior lines of Cybertron solved their differences peacefully.

Like in so many other worlds, the warriors wanted to expand. They were however less fanatical about it than in the most other dimensions. Instead of conquering other worlds to build up their own empire, they settled to just colonize inhabited planets.

So, even without the imperialism of the group who would have called itself the Decepticons, the cybertronian race and it´s influence was spreading.

Cybertron had been at peace for millions of years.

xxxxxxx

_Timeline 0_

Ultra Magnus laid the data card aside. He had just red the beginning of the report about the last time-line.

Peace, no war between the Autobots and the Decepticons. The thought was really alluring. It was something that the Autobots in his world had always wished for.

He knew of course that this wouldn´t remove the other threats like Unicron and the Quintessons.

As much destruction and harm the Transformer civil war had caused, Magnus was willing to admit that it, at least for the Autobots, had also done something good to prepare them for this threats. He knew that, at least in the way they had originally been created, barely one of his faction would have willingly become soldiers.

Something like him, a warrior Autobot, would probably not even exist in this world and the defense of the planet would be left only to the Decepticons.

And maybe this would not be enough.

He continued to read the rest of the report.

Like he had thought, Cybertron had at one point come into a war with the Quintessons

and Unicron had found the planet some day.

To his surprise however, he also red that not only became Orion Pax Optimus Prime at some point, but also were his friend Dion, Ariel and the much younger Autobot Hotrod been upgraded into

Himself, Elita One and Rodimus, however under completely different circumstances as it happened in his world.

Primus was involved, he thought, he had to, to give them a fighting chance.

And he didn´t thought of that in the religious sense, by far not. They knew by now that Primus actually existed and that he sometimes interferred in the lives of his creations, to protect them from Unicron.

In the end, this Transformers had survived, but with horrible losses.

The war against the Quintessons was devestating and so would be Unicron´s attack.

But despite everything, they would manage to survive.

Ultra Magnus put the report away. This was all very interesting.

In first line to compare all this to his own world.

But what they were looking for, an interference in the timeline, was not to find.

At least that dimension was now relatively safe, he thought.

They would continue their investigation somewhere else.


	4. Chapter 4: timeline 1 again

**Chapter 4**

It was the landscape of Oregon in North America.

Out of place in this picture were the two giant robots standing over the destroyed bodies of over a dozen others of their kind.

One of them was Galvatron, Decepticon leader from the future, who had traveled from the year 2006 back in time.

In the last months he had left an path of destruction over this world and this time, in particular the North American continent. Whoever was standing in his way had been crushed, be it Transformer or human.

One of the greatest losses was Ultra Magnus, the best warrior of the Autobots, who had been killed when he challenged Galvatron at the mount Verona, several months before.

Recently he had taken control of a small group of other renegades with similar goals as his own. Their aim was to take power over the Decepticons and to wreck havoc on this world.

A few weeks ago the Autobots reacted to the threat by sending the elite unit called the Wreckers after him. Unknown to them at this point, the Decepticons did the same thing and send their own elite group after the renegades.

The Wreckers were the best Autobot fighting unit Cybertron had to offer.

But even they had failed in the end and were now lying defeated to Galvatron´s feet, right next to the Decepticon group that had the same order.

Like a picture from some terrible nightmare, he was standing over the field of dead bodies.

But all this however wasn´t even the true danger this world was facing at the moment.

In the last months, Galvatron´s activities in this time period had crossed a level by that they threatened the stability of time and space itself.

His interference in the past became so vast that it had already made the future where he came from itself impossible.

And it was still getting worse.

It was a paradox of incomprehensible dimensions. Galvatron´s actions were still influencing the presence while he himself strictly seen should not even exist anymore.

The world were he came from was meant to vanish from this time-line, only left as one of the countless possibilities that already had past.

But the mere fact that Galvatron was still here, his continued presence in this time period, made it impossible for the time-line to rewrite itself.

He himself was a living anomaly in time and space. Created in a future that was no longer possible and traveled back into a presence that he was no part of.

All this had caused a rift in time and space, between past and future, that was now showing itself in a destructive phenomenon.

This "time rift", was now threatening the existence of both, future and past reality. The forced divergence between the two time periods was ripping this planet apart. Because he was on it.

But this version of Galvatron was already far beyond caring.

Even if you had told him that his actions would bring upon the end of this world with everybody on it, human, Autobot and Decepticon alike, he would probably only embrace it.

Before him stood Ultra Magnus, the same robot he had killed months ago and next to him the triple changer Springer, the Dinobot Grimlock, his team-mate Snarl and the Autobot Roadbuster.

Some of them were also lying dead before them as part of the groups that had tried to stop Galvatron and his followers. The same robots, in some sense, one time dead and yet alive at the same place.

xxxxxxx

_A few hours earlier_

Springer was currently stuck in close combat with one of Galvatron´s underlings.

A short distance from them a number of wreckers were teaming up on Galvatron.

Roadbuster and Inferno were firing their lasers at him without any visible effect. He only was laughing.

Then he started to shoot back, one blast ripped a nearby Autobot´s head off, another blew a Decepticon apart.

He attacked members of both factions with barely a difference. Roadbuster tried to stop him and was the first to fall. Galvatron ripped his right arm off and shoot him through the spark chamber.

Springer who had just defeated the renegade was next, then the Decepticon Battletrap, then Inferno, Sandstorm,

until in the end Galvatron stood alone, surrounded by a field of dead bodies.

xxxxxxx

_Now_

"Magnus", Galvatron screamed. "How?", He asked. "I killed you, I saw you die... with my own hands", he murmured. "I know I killed you", he repeated himself in a lower voice. Then he smiled maliciously.

"Oh, I see, you came from another future, one were you still exist. The universe is changing every minute thanks to me, just so I can kill you once again. How generous of you, don´t you think so?" Galvatron started to laugh manically.

"You are right in one point, I am not the same Ultra Magnus that you have known. But I am here to Stop you."

"You will fail, just like the other one."

This universe was a perfect example of the disasters a misuse of the transwarp-technology could cause, Ultra Magnus thought. Exactly this was the reason it had been outlawed in his home dimension.

Their group had to stop this version of Galvatron and with that the anomaly he had caused before the effect could spread even further.

Before anybody could say anything more, the crazed Decepticon raised his cannon and both sides began to fire.

"I will kill you again and again, a hundred times if it had to", he screamed, "and it will be a pleasure for me." The Decepticon attacked him in a wild rage.

Ultra Magnus was struggling with Galvatron one to one, he was the only one of their group who was really suited for this.

The others were trying to support him by firing shots at their opponent from the distance. Despite the damage he had taken in the earlier fight, they were barely able to hurt him.

Galvatron, Ultra Magnus knew from experience, was nearly indestructible and this version didn´t seemed to be any weaker than the one he had known. Stopping him would be very hard, even for a team as powerful as them.

What they would have needed was a small army, they simply didn´t have the time to gather one. They had just found out about the disaster that was about to happen in this world.

Even if they managed to bring him down, it would not be without further losses, without losing more Autobots.

And Ultra Magnus didn´t accept losing anyone in this mission, not now.

At the same moment the time-rift suddenly became visible in the sky. As they were fighting, it came closer and closer down to earth.

"Do you see that? Galvatron asked them exited.

"It is a rift in the universe", Ultra Magnus answered, "a rift that you have caused."

"Yes, while we stand here the future that I came from is being erased only to be recreated by me. I form the universe by my will."

"You are insane", Ultra Magnus told him. "This planet will break apart."

"Magnus", Galvatron smiled at him, "I have never taken you to be a coward. I see that you just don´t understand the scope of what I am doing. The universe itself follos my command now. You and you alone will die here. The rest of your kind will follow later", he said before he fired again.

„Autobots, Decepticons, what kind of difference does it make for me? They are all not worthy to stand in my presence."

By now the time rift was now so close that it already began to rip parts out of the ground.

Suddenly another robot appeared on the battlefield, a large but sleek Autobot in the colors of flames.

"Galvatron", the robot called him, "This is the end for you. I will stop you."

"Rodimus Prime", the Decepticon shouted and pointed his weapon at his new opponent.

But the blast passed right through the image of the Autobot leader.

"What? No", Galvatron screamed, realizing that it was a hologram.

Magnus used this chance. He charged at the Decepticon while he was distracted.

"This holo-projector came in quite handy", Magnus commented as he grabbed Galvatron.

He had an idea. It was as crazy that it could nearly work.

Ultra Magnus lifted the struggling Galvatron over his head and threw him with all his strength in the direction of the time-rift. The anomaly was now so close that they could feel it´s energy on their bodies.

Somewhere in midair, Galvatron caught himself and turned around to the Autobots. But it was already too late. The time-rift was directed at him, it existed to remove him from a world where he should not longer exist.

It would follow him everywhere and it came closer and closer.

"No", the insane Decepticon screamed as he collided with the anomaly he himself had created.

Ultra Magnus knew something similar had also happened somewhere in another universe, so he had some idea what would happen.

He and the others watched in silent horror as Galvatron´s body was being ripped apart by the forces of time and space.

A few moments later it was over. The time-rift seemed to collapse into itself before their eyes.

"That was it?" Grimlock asked, "that easy?"

"You call that easy?" Springer replied.

"Yes, the things in this world will hopefully go back to normal now", Ultra Magnus said. "We also not belong to this world. We should return now."

He activated the transwarp mechanism.

In the next moment they were gone.


	5. Chapter 5: timeline 4 future

**Chapter 5**

_Time-line 4: Planet Chaar, the year 2008_

Cyclonus was watching his troops who were assembled on the surface of the planet, close to their new base.

Many of them were in a miserable state, damaged and low on energon.

After the last battle with the Autobots they were still in bad shape.

Galvatron had vanished after the battle with Unicron. They had never found out for sure what had happened to the former leader.

After Galvatron´s disappearance he, along with Sourge, had taken over. But it had turned out that the luck was not on their side.

First they had lost Cybertron to the Autobots. As Unicron had destroyed a great part of their army, they were not longer able to hold the planet. A short time later the Autobots had regrouped and forced them off from most of their other strongholds.

They were constantly low on energon and could barely hold up to fight. But they refused to give up.

"Soundwave", he addressed the communication officer, "give me a full status report."

"One warrior dead, twelve damaged, five of them temporally dysfunctional for duty, energon storage depleted." He gave the devastating resume in his monotonous voice.

"Thank you Soundwave", he said.

Cyclonus knew the situation was bad, desperate even.

He thought it could hardly get any worse. He was wrong.

Only a few light-minutes away from Chaar, a hole in the universe had been opened.

The time rift had grown active in their universe and it was expanding, a thousand times faster than it had been in the past.

It became visible on the planet very quickly, but it was already too late. It was too late before it even started.

What they didn´t knew was that the same phenomenon appeared also above Cybertron, earth and from there spreading further over the entire universe.

"Scourge", he called out, "what is that?"

The Sweep scanned the anomaly with his advanced sensors and all he could do was stare.

"The end", he said cryptically.

In only minutes their planet itself was being ripped apart.

What none of them was aware of, this was the time-line where Galvatron traveled from into the past, this was the time-line that was being erased.


	6. Chapter 6: timeline 0

**Chapter 6**

_Time-line 0:_

The space ship was slowly nearing the single space-station that occupied this star system. It was the same one from that Ultra Magnus and his team had started their missions.

It was their universe that had developed transwarp technology first over 300 years ago and had outlawed is only a short time later.

On board Cyclonus was walking in front of a group of Decepticon elite robots were assembled in a line before him.

"Scourge, Sixshot, Banzai-Tron, Skyhound, Tracker, Spinister, Quake", he called their names as they stood in attention.

"You all have been chosen for this mission and I expect you to do your best, no matter what it might involve", he said to them.

Even if it means working with the Autobots, he thought silently.

Behind them Galvatron and Soundwave had entered the deck.

"Is everything ready Cyclonus?" The Decepticon leader asked.

"Yes Galvatron."

"Good, then let us meet our `old friends´", Galvatron said.

At the end of the great war the most Decepticons had left the local galaxy and settled in another sector of the universe.

Now, after a long absence they had returned to this part of space.

Despite everything, Cyclonus admitted to himself, they would need the Autobots to face the coming threat.

Their ship had just finished docking on the Autobot station.

The locks before them opened and the contingent of Decepticons entered the space station. On board they were greeted by a trio of Autobots.

"Optimus Prime, Rodimus, Ultra Magnus", the Decepticon leader addressed them, "it is good to see you again." He said this with a smile.

* * *

><p><strong>Comment:<strong> Time-line 0 is the normal/main time-line (that is based on the g1 and beast wars cartoons and my stories time-circle, transwarp and evolution.)


	7. Chapter 7: timeline 0 part 2

**Chapter 7**

The combined group of Autobots and Decepticons had assembled in the conference hall of the space station.

In front of the members of both factions, Ultra Magnus was holding a summing-up about the situation they were facing.

"Autobots and Decepticons", he addressed them. "As you are all aware we are facing a new crisis."

Most of his audience were already informed about this events, but only a few knew the details.

The two Primes and Galvatron and Cyclonus on the other side were each sitting in the center of their respective group of followers.

"A old enemy of all of us has returned", Ultra Magnus announced.

"The Fallen, once also known as Megatronus Prime is an ancient Cybertronian, one of the Original Thirteen", he continued his explanation.

"In prehistorical times he turned away from his brothers and his creator and became a herald of Unicron. Together with his master he destroyed neighboring star systems, waged a war that devastated the old Cybertron and ultimately tried to annihilate the entire universe.

As you all know The Fallen had been banished from this reality,

But that was not his end. Several years ago he allied himself with another of our old enemies."

Ultra Magnus began now with the description of the second threat they were facing.

"The creature that had once been known to us as Cabal was a being from another universe. He came from a reality that only consisted of chaos and destruction.

It was a experiment by members of an now long gone organic species that brought him to our world millions of years ago. The first thing he did after his arrival was to devastate their planet and to send their race to extinction.

As we have later found out, he was only a small part of a intelligence that was controlling this dimension and had been separated by the incident. Like a single cell of a larger organism.

This entity is able to devour entire universes.

The being that had called itself "Cabal" was only a part of the monster.

Several years ago those two made an attempt to open a warp-gate to this other universe after destabilizing the time-stream.

This would have led to the destruction of our reality. The world as we know it would have been consumed by what was waiting on the other side.

As you all know that attempt had been stopped in the last moment.

But now The Fallen has returned. He had appeared in another of the parallel universes and there he wants to try it again", he ended his speech.


	8. Chapter 8: destruction

**Chapter 8**

_Universe 001, earth year 2012_

The ancient cybertronian who was known as The Fallen was watching over the planet that was lying in ruins below him. It had once been the home of a organic race.

Now however it had been wiped out by the hands of the followers of his old master who came with him to this dimension and were still following his orders.

After Unicron´s last defeat at the hands of the Autobots and Decepticons, he had taken control of what was left of the sect that had been worshiping him, the Brotherhood of Chaos.

He was standing on board a large machinery that was orbiting this now dead world.

All the resources of this planet were now being used for the realization of his latest project.

The destruction of the natives was however not just a question of convenience, because they were in the way. He ordered their death because it was his nature, he killed them because they were weak, unwilling to evolve.

Their society had not changed or progressed in thousand years, not longer able to question itself or look beyond it´s own limitations, their end was a matter of principle. It was the way he had hold up for eternities.

The universe, his universe was based on chaos and entropy, existence was based on destruction.

This was a universe where the great war had led to the downfall of both Autobots and Decepticons. Both races were now reduced to nothing but a handful of survivors who were clinging to their existence.

This meant for him only that there would be far less hindrances on his way.

The giant construction he was now standing in was created for a single purpose, to bridge the gap between the dimensions, like they had done it once before in another universe.

The temporal crisis that was caused by the Galvatron of this world was now over 20 years ago, but still not over. It was this point in time where he started from, the earth year 2012. With his attempt to change the past, he had caused a paradox and unintentionally erased his own future, replacing it with a new one.

This had of course led to a destabilization of the time-stream, exactly the circumstances they needed. A weakening in the consistence of time and space, that was necessary to open the gate to the chaos realm.

Ironically, he thought, it was Galvatron who had in the past been responsible for the death of many of the most important Autobots and Decepticons and it were his actions that led to the escalation of their war.

In the end he owed the insane Decepticon his thanks, not only for creating the disturbance in the time-line that made this project possible in the first place, but also for removing nearly everyone in this world who would be able to oppose him.

Now finally he would have the chance to create a universe completely in his image, on the burning remains of this one.

Even his creator Primus would not longer be able to deny that his way was the right one.

"Fallen", he heard the telepathic voice of his new partner calling out to him through their mental contact. It was speaking in terms that could barely be put in mortal terms, images and words flowing into his mind.

The sense however was simple to put into one short sentence.

"Is everything ready?"

"Soon, my friend", he assured him. "The machine that will bring you into this world is nearly finished and then this universe will be ours."

Partner, not master, he was not longer serving anyone, he thought. They both were winning in similar parts from their alliance.

While the entity would be able to consume this universe, he would be the one in charge of forming it anew according to his ideas,

only to tear it down once again when the time will come.

Nothing is eternal except the destruction itself.


	9. Chapter 9: timeline 0 part 3

**Chapter 9  
><strong>

_The year 2318, universe 0  
><em>

The small group of Decepticons was still on board of the space station run by their Autobot allies. They were here as part of the temporally alliance between their two factions.

In this time the great war was long over.

Cybertron was in this age populated by their descendants, two races called Maximals and Predacons, while both Autobots and Decepticons had left into space a long time ago.

For over 300 years they lived in peace by now and the two Transformer races had for the most parts gone their separate ways.

But now the reappearance of two old enemies, The Fallen and the entity that was once known as Cabal, had brought them back together.

Because of this they were here on personal invitation from Optimus and Rodimus Prime.

This station was the base of a special team consisting of Autobots and humans who was overseeing the legal and illegal use of time travel and transwarp-technology and was scouting alternate universes.

Cyclonus and Scourge were sitting in one of the rooms and were waiting for their search units to bring in the necessary information.

Currently they were reading in the archives of the station about the past activities of this group.

At the one side they wanted to get an better idea how their new (and old) partners were working, on the other they just wanted a way to occupy themselves.

xxx

_The principles of Time travel and the crossing to alternate universes are closely related. Both can be realized with the use of transwarp-technology._

_Another universe is in many cases only a different time-line whose history diverged from our at a certain point in the past, separated from us through the hyperspace and the dimension of time._

_Some of this worlds split from ours billions of years ago and don´t longer have any similarity with ours anymore, others just now in our time and are different in only a few details._

_Some of this worlds had been created naturally, other through the interference of a time traveler, some are stable others are unstable side time-lines and collapse as soon as the cause of their existence is negated._

_Transwarp is based on the artificial creation of wormholes through particle-concentration. This made it possible to cause a rift in the time-space and to reach in theory every point in the multiverse._

xxx

Cyclonus had just red this interesting article from the Autobot scientist Brainstorm. It described very quickly and precise the idea of the transwarp-technology that they were all first introduced to by the mysterious pyramid in the Earth year 2011.

XXX

As he continued to look through the archives he also found another file that greatly interested him.

There were a number of alternate realities described, one where the great war never happened,

one where the Autobots and Decepticons inside the Ark reactivated centuries earlier as the humans were still primitives,

another where Ultra Magnus was send to a mind-prison at the beginning of the war and not recovered until millions of years later, when Optimus Prime was already in stasis on Earth.

There was also a world were Unicron had found Cybertron nearly 9.000.000 years earlier. While the Transformer of this universe managed to damage the physical body of the Chaos Bringer beyond repair, the greatest part of the population had been wiped out and their home-planet itself obliterated.

Ironically, this was probably a hidden blessing from Megatron´s failed attempt to turn Cybertron into a mobile fortress in their own reality or maybe as some thought it had been Primus plan all along.

XXX

But what he found of the greatest personal interest was a universe where a very special time-traveler appeared in the year 1987 on Earth.

This time-traveler was nobody else than a second version of Skywarp, of himself in a sense. He remembered how something very similar also happened in his own world, back then when the creature Cabal was manipulating the time-line.

A future version of himself came back to warn them. In this version of the story the second Skywarp survived his injuries and joined Megatron´s troops, however under a different name and with a altered body.

Thanks to him the Decepticons had access to limited knowledge about possible futures. But it turned out that the time-line was already too changed for this to be truly effective. But he had managed to give them a early warning about Unicron and 20 years to prepare.

What they didn´t count on was Starscream´s betrayal that played out pretty much the same way as in the world he knew.

Megatron was turned into Galvatron and his regular counterpart had taken his new identity as Cyclonus. In this reality however the Decepticon leader died in the battle against Unicron and his own other self had taken over in his place.

Instead of Galvatron it was Cyclonus who led the Decepticons against Rodimus Prime. The other Skywarp was still a member of his army and went from that point on once again under his real name.

xxx

It was a bizarre story from his point of view. But who can say what if?

He had seen himself die on that day back then, after giving Megatron his warning.

They had also located the world where the other version of himself came from.

That time-line had collapsed after the destruction of the time-machine that had caused it´s creation in the first place. It´s consistence was from the beginning only build up on this.

After reading about this reality Cyclonus understood the need of his other self to warn Megatron about the time-travel device and urged him to destroy it.

Cybertron wiped out by Unicron, both Autobots and Decepticons practically brought to extinction.

By what he had red the Megatron of this world had been under the mental influence of Cabal for years and had slowly been losing himself more and more.

He or rather Skywarp remembered all too well how this creature could twist someone´s senses from the time they had found him on a dead world millions of years ago.

This entire reality had ultimately been nothing but a tool for Cabal to realize his own terrible aims.

In his opinion it was a good thing that this world didn´t exist anymore.

"Cyclonus." He heard a voice that he knew all too well. "We have found them", Rodimus told him.

As it looked their scouts had located their enemies, it was time to put an stop to them once again.

"Very good", he replied.

* * *

><p><strong>Side-note:<strong> This chapter is nearly identical to the epilogue of the story Time Circle that is describing the same situation. It is also referring heavily to what happened in that story.


	10. Chapter 10: god of destruction

**Chapter 10  
><strong>

On the other side of the gate that The Fallen and his followers were about to open, a creature was waiting that was beyond any understanding.

The being was watching, sensing the events that were happening at the end of the tunnel that was about to be created, the forming of the way that would once again give him access to another universe.

And he had been waiting for a long time.

Many of the ones who knew of his existence thought that he and this world where he was residing in were one and the same. But they were wrong.

The actual beginning of his existence predated the start of time itself. He was there since the dawn of the multiverse and beyond.

Like Unicron he was one of the beings that the cosmic guardian Primus had once labeled as the dark of them were forces of destruction, nameless terrors from before the beginning of time.

His presence had manifested itself into this dimension a long time ago and then it began to reach out.

This universe had been his for countless millions of years by now. He was controlling and driving every aspect, every particle of this reality. Once it had been a world not unlike many others out there in the eternity, stars, galaxies, planets, life, entire civilizations, millions of them, cosmic alliances and empires, gone now, eradicated by his hand.

He had consumed this dimension piece by piece, twisted it into his image, the suns became novae, the world fell into global disasters, the life killed each other in endless wars or mass insanity, until it was all his.

To serve his ever present craving he kept it in an eternal circle of never ending destruction, pain and chaos, one plane of existence created in his image, at one point he had even created new life just to have them wipe each other out.

But ultimately he wanted, needed more.

In the end everything that existed in **this** world now only came from him, only to be devoured by him. It was a closed circle.

But he as the incarnation of destruction needed something more.

And he would have it.

Some time ago, nine million years by the time scale of the universe his opponents originated in, his wish had nearly been fulfilled, by an random experiment of a species whose arrogance had been greater than it´s knowledge. Accidentally they had created a hole in their world and opened so a gate to his.

For a short moment he had what he wanted, a new world to annihilate and reform, a new field of unlimited terror.

But that gate had not been open long enough. Only a small part of his consciousness was able to enter. It was however more than enough to bring their planet and their species their death.

Then he met the Transformers, who left that small part of him behind on the world he had turned into a wasteland, denying him access to the rest of their universe.

Millions of years later he had tried to open another gate, together with his new ally the former servant of Unicron and he was once again stopped by them.

But this time he would finally succeed.

This new gate would lead him into a new universe, completely new, while nearly identical to the last one he had targeted, all enemies who could have stopped him didn´t exist there. It was a new world without any resistance.

He sensed his ally waiting at the other side, preparing, just like he was here.

Soon, very soon.


	11. Chapter 11: t-line 13 Beast Wars averted

**Chapter 11**

_Universe 13_

In the orbit above a seemingly random planet of the local galaxy two space-ships were involved in a battle. The two vessels were shooting each other with missiles and laser blasts.

Large sections of the ship´s bodies were scorched and entire parts of the machinery were ripped out. Finally both opponents who had taken a comparable level of damage were descending down into the atmosphere.

The two objects that were falling down from the sky however had not been unnoticed.

xxx

At two places on the planet, hundreds of miles from each other, the same things were happening.

An airlock was opened before many watching eyes and out of the ship came a group of strangers. These beings were larger than humans, but not by that much, they looked robotic, but seemed to have organic components.

A few of the native people present recognized what this visitors were. Mechanical beings similar like that had come to their world before over a century ago. They hadn´t been exactly like this ones, they were larger and had no organic parts. But for everybody who had seen their kind before the similarities were obvious.

"Optimus", one of these aliens said, "where are we?"

"I don´t know Cheetor", the robot who was obviously the leader answered.

xxx

Hundreds of miles away a nearly identical scene was playing out. The second ship, like the first one, was surrounded by dozens of military vehicles and soldier units.

As they alien robots stepped outside they were being greeted by their weapons pointed at them.

"This can not be right", one of them said, "where are we?"

"Megatron you idiot", another called out, "this is the wrong time. while this is clearly Earth you brought us here millions of years too late."

The purple robot he had spoken too was starring at the natives, realization setting in that the other robot was right.

"You have failed as our leader", the other accused him. "I am taking over now. I am challenging you for command", he said and raised a weapon that was resembling a sword.

"Oh yes?" the second robot replied and looked as if he was preparing himself.

"Hey you", a voice interrupted them, "stop it right now and put down your weapons."

They both looked astonished by the order.

"You dare to threaten us?" the one called Megatron asked them.

"This is our planet. You have no authority here and we won´t let you turn our world into a battleground. If you start a fight with us or with each other we consider this an act of war."

"Oh yes? Then you can have it." He raised his arm that had an inbuilt blaster and fired at one of the tanks.

Moments later he and all of his group were hit by hundreds of laser blasts, grenades missiles and armor piercing bullets.

xxx

_Earth, the year 2115_

The planet Earth had changed much during the last 100 years. Through cybernetics and gen-engineering the human lifespan had widened into the centuries. The technology, that was already on a high level thanks to the contact with the Transformers and other species, had once again drastically improved, the weapon technology included. Space and even time-travel were nothing unusual.

Thinking computers and artificial intelligences had been developed and were coexisting with the humans.

The human life-form itself had changed dramatically. Beside the genetic augmentations that allowed most people to live several times longer than before, many had mechanical implants in their bodies and had basically become cyborgs.

While the cybertronian species had become more organic, the human one had made an interesting mirroring development into the opposite direction.

EDC-General Spike Witwicky was looking at the unconscious bodies of the six robots they had just disabled.

They were descendants of the Decepticons, he was sure of this. Their leader was calling himself Megatron after all.

"General Faireborn, Marissa do you hear me?" he called to his partner.

"Yes Spike I hear you."

"We have got them. All of them are in stasis. We told them to stand down but they had started a fight", he said.

"The other ones were willing to talk. They had surrendered to us for the moment and are carried to the base right now. Their leader is calling himself Optimus Primal", she informed him.

"Good", he replied. "I will made contact with the next Autobot colony and organize for them to be transported back to Cybertron."

xxxxxxx

_Universe 0, year 2312_

_**Ultra Magnus date entry:** The history of this universe progressed very similar to ours. For that reason it is very good example for research. One of the few known differences is that as the renegade leader Megatron had tried to time-jump into the distant past on Earth the transwarp-drive malfunctioned and they instead landed less than 200 years before their own time._

_It seemed for the highly progressed and well equipped humans of that century the small band of Predacons were not much of a match and they were easily dispatched._


	12. Chapter 12: timeline 1: surprise attack

**Chapter 12  
><strong>

_Universe 1_

Even a being like the ancient cybertronian known as The Fallen could barely believe what was happening.

Just at the time they wanted to start the process that would open the gate to the other dimension, two transwarp-ships had appeared in the star system.

As soon as they had materialized themselves both vessels instantly opened fire on the kilometer-wide space-station that had been constructed to open the hyper-space gate to the other dimension.

A number of fliers was leaving the attacking ships. He recognized Cyclonus, Scourge, the Aerialbots and a few others with them.

The Autobots and the Decepticons had teamed up against him once again, of course.

He had spend over a year preparing alone for this project. How in the world had they found out about it?

This wasn´t their reality, the cybertronians of this universe were practically extinct. So what were they doing here?

The tremors of the impacts and explosions were shaking the station around him.

Most of his troops were outside to defend the station and were engaging the Autobot and Decepticon fleet. From the distance he saw one of his allies in jet-mode getting destroyed by Cyclonus long range missiles, not that he actually cared about the loss. The Brotherhood of Chaos and it´s members had never been much more than a mean to an end.

But he could see that it was already in vain.

Their enemies was causing heavy damage and in a short time it would be enough to make the process to open the gate impossible.

It was too late, only by a few minutes but already too late. Had this strike-force appeared only a short time later they would have succeeded.

He realized that the station was receiving a call. Where these blasted Transformers actually contacting him only to gloat?

On a screen next to him appeared Optimus Prime, Galvatron, Rodimus and Ultra Magnus, standing beside each other.

"You", he said angrily.

"Yes exactly, us", Optimus Prime replied.

"How have you found out what we were planning?" he asked.

"You are not the only one who is watching the time-lines", Ultra Magnus told him. "We did have an eye on this reality for a long time, since the time-rift that the native Galvatron had caused", he said

"I guess that was the way it came to your attention too right? In that way we found out that you were planning some time ago", Rodimus Prime mentioned. "It seems you had just bad luck."

The Fallen was now ready to scream in anger.

"I see the Autobots and the Decepticons are working together once again", he said looking at Galvatron.

"Optimus and Rodimus had invited us along", the Decepticon leader replied, "and while we usually don´t cooperate often, as we heard you are involved it was reason enough to make an exception."

Outside in space the defending forces of the Brotherhood of Chaos were getting more and more decimated. The transwarp-ship of the Autobots had blown up one of their other jets and the Sweeps killed one of their men who was fighting in robot-mode.

Now the attackers had started to concentrate their fire completely on the space-station.

This battle was already over, it was only that the last shot had not been fired yet.

"You think you have won?" The Fallen asked them angrily. "You have not. You may have stopped us this time, but we will start anew somewhere else. Maybe it will take thousands of years but we will."

All around him the station was starting to fall apart.

_"Indeed." _The all were hearing a telepathic call reaching out to them, even the ones who were outside fighting in space. Some of them recognized the mental voice as the one of the creature Cabal, the same being that was waiting now in the universe on the other side of the gate.

_"You have won for **now** Transformers, but we will return."_ Then it was gone.

They saw how the space-station exploded under their combined fire.

In the last moment The Fallen used his ability to jump into other realities to escape the destruction.

The allied Autobots and Decepticons on board their ships hadn´t detected this, but they had already been assuming that he would survive.

"So that was it, we have stopped them", Ultra Magnus said.

"Yes", Rodimus repeated, "for now."


	13. Chapter 13: timeline 14 twisted mirror

**Chapter 13**

_Universe 14, Earth year 2006_

It was now over 20 years ago that the Autobots had landed on the planet Earth to „defend" it from the Decepticons.

In this time they had rooted their influence deep into the heart of this world. The strategy they had tested out on many other worlds came here to it´s full success. Alone in the first two years they had come remarkable far.

The planet Earth was turned in the battleground of their war against the Decepticons and the human race became their "allies" and the source of the precious energon.

It was now over 9.000.000 years ago that the revolution leader Megatron had first rebelled against the established government of Cybertron.

During the "Golden Age", the time after the expulsion of the former rulers the Quintessons a society had been formed that the robots of the warrior-line saw as unjust and oppressive and resisted it.

They started a war to bring it down without much result until Megatron arose. He was the first to successful challenge the Autobot government and nearly conquered the planet.

But then a new Autobot leader took command, one who was more powerful, more shrewd and more willing to do anything for the sake of victory than the ones before, Optimus Prime.

At this point nobody knew yet how their new commander would reform the Autobot faction.

Under heavy losses of lives and material he was able to bring the war back to a stalemate.

Already in the beginning-phase they had staged a number of attacks and made it look as if the Decepticons were responsible.

It continued in that way for millions of years until the energy resources of Cybertron itself became depleted. Then, with the search for new sources of energon, the war spread to other worlds.

One of them was Earth.

Over the years the Autobots did many things to made themselves indispensable to the humans.

Never did they find out what the Autobots were truly planning, until it was too late.

Already in the opening-phase they staged a number of attacks and made it look as if the Decepticons were responsible.

In that way they brought the human governments to agree to supply them with the resources of their planet. Ironically this forced the Decepticons to actually start fighting on the Earth with the native population in the crossfire, but this served the Autobot´s purposes quite well.

So it continued for several years.

As the level of the destruction and the death toll of the attacks, of which many were still caused by the Autobots themselves, the humans gave up more and more of their independence to their "alliance".

Under the leadership of Optimus Prime the Autobots had turned into a cruel and militaristic dictatorship that was bent on conquest and dominance and went far beyond the mere complacent corruption of the government before, but were still able and willing to hold up the guise of their more peaceful ancestors.

It was the year 2000 on Earth when they finally decided to drop the mask.

Their coup began with the systematic assassination of the most important human leaders, something that was easy from the position of trust they had manipulated themselves into.

Next they devastated a number of larger town from several nations to scare down any resistance.

With Earth, it´s people and all it´s resources now completely under their control the complete conquest of Cybertron and the annihilation of the Decepticon resistance was only a question of time.


	14. Chapter 14: timeline 14 downfall

**Chapter 14  
><strong>

_Universe 14_

In the Earth year 2006 the war between the Decepticons and the Autobots came to it´s final phase.

During this time the Decepticon leader Megatron had found a ancient artifact, the legendary Creation Matrix, that was also known as the Matrix of leadership.

Long time ago the object was being held by the ruling Prime of Cybertron, but after the begin of the Great War, after Optimus Prime took over and started to form the Autobots into a force of destruction and tyranny, the ancient cybertronian Alpha Trion took it and hid it away.

Now, millions of years later it as being rediscovered.

A battle took place on a small planetoid, light-years away from Cybertron or Earth. It was the place where Alpha Trion had brought the Matrix all this time ago.

Megatron was however not the only one who had found out about the location. The information had also fallen into the Autobot´s hands and the wanted it for themselves, Optimus Prime taking himself to be the rightful heir of it´s possession and power.

So warriors of both sides were fighting over the legendary artifact. Air-warriors and shuttles were clashing in space while the two leaders met up deep inside the tunnels under the rocky surface of the lifeless orb.

Megatron found the object first but Prime took him by surprise in the process of taking it.

What followed was one of the most intense and ultimately the last dual between the old foes. For a long time none of the opponents was able to clearly got the upper hand but both took heavy damage.

Ultimately however the fight was not decided by the question who was the better warrior or by Megatron´s determination or Optimus Prime´s greed for the powerful artifact, it was another, completely simple, fact. A young Autobot named Hotrod who secretly wanted both the Matrix and the leadership for himself had followed them.

When he saw the chance as the two leaders had locked themselves into a standstill and were both damaged from their battle, he shot his weakened commander in the back. Normally Prime´s armor would easily be able to withstand such an attack, but in his state it was no longer any protection. The shot pierced right through his spark-chamber and Optimus Prime died through the hands of one of his own men.

Then he rushed forward to take the Matrix for himself. The wounded Megatron was not longer able to stop him.

But as he had the object in his hands and was trying to unlock it´s power he realized that nothing happened.

Ironically while this battle had been a Autobot victory it was also the beginning of the end for them.

As Hotrod returned with the Matrix in his hands he was taking leadership under the name Rodimus Prime, but some of the other officers used his inability to actually use the legendary powers of the artifact, which they didn´t even knew for sure if they actually existed, to doubt the "validity" of his claim for it.

Some of them like Springer, Ultra Magnus and Grimlock went out for themselves with their followers.

While Magnus for example was disgusted with the brutal course the Autobots had taken and wanted to end the war, Grimlock on the other hand thought the were not going far enough and wanted an even greater escalation.

A short time later a civil-war broke out between the different Autobot factions.

"Rodimus Prime" was murdered, shot in the back, a few months later by one of his closest advisers and friends Kup, who wanted to find out if he had more luck in using the Matrix. He did not.

Kup himself was assassinated shortly afterwards and the splintered Autobot army was decimating himself more and more.

In the end it were not their enemies that brought the Autobots down, but a destructive element of their own society.

A short time later the conquered planet Earth was being freed and their occupation came to an end. After a few more battles the Autobots were finally defeated and the war was over.

Ultra Magnus as the new Autobot leader surrendered and signed a peace agreement with their enemies, which included Decepticons and humans.

xxxxxxx

_Universe 0, the year 2318_

Ultra Magnus laid aside the data carrier with the information about this particular reality, it was like looking into a distorting mirror.

Somehow it reminded him of a episode from an old science fiction show from Earth he had once seen.

But it wasn´t so easy. This was not some sort of mirror-verse were everybody who was good here was evil and the other way around.

Alpha Trion had still been more or less the robot he had known from his own world. It was under Optimus counterpart where everything started to turn wrong. At least his own double had not been that bad, he thought.

The Autobots became corrupt while ironically the Decepticons were able to develop more of their positive qualities in this world.

Decepticon, the name was still the same. Magnus knew the word came up at the end of the Golden Age, when the warrior line robots had lost the first Autobot-Decepticon war. At that time they had been turned into a at one side often oppressed but on the other radical and militant minority that was trying to undermine and destroy the society of Cybertron of that time.

On that background the name was all to fitting, if they were now "good" or "evil". Not that there had ever been a faction on Cybertron that was ever completely fitting to one of these terms.

In this other universe the Great War came to an end in 2006, years before it did in his and ultimately with less death and destruction. Planets like Nebulos or Paradron had been completely spared by this version of the war.

Still Ultra Magnus had just an uneasy feeling about this universe. He was used to his people being the "good guys" and the Decepticons as the first maybe evil and now at least more grey characters. The Autobots may not have been perfect, but neither were they conquering tyrants or liars who manipulated themselves into the good graces of other species only to ruin them.

He preferred this setting of the world.

And who knew maybe there was a world out there with the Autobots as the evil ones where things turned out even worse than they ever did in his.

Ultra Magnus was looking at the various data-cards before him that all described different universes. The majority of them was without life, some even without matter, only a few, relatively seen, were truly interesting.

One of the purposes of this organization he was currently under his command was to stop inter-dimensional crisis like the one they had just weathered, another one was the exploration of the multiverse and it´s various possibilities.

He could only hope that disasters like the ones he had just seen could in the future be prevented.

xxxxxxx

Galaxies away, in he part of space where the Decepticons had settled after the end of the Great War the contingent led by Galvatron and Cyclonus had returned a few days ago.

The Decepticon leader was sitting in the command chair of the transwarp-ship as his second in command approached him.

"I have here the summary of the information we received from the Autobot base", he reported.

"Very good Cyclonus", Galvatron answered.

Years ago he had practically been possessed by the idea of destroying every Autobot and for some time he had been nearly as insane as his counterpart who had been destroyed by the time-storm.

But the events, ultimately the Hate Plaque ans Unicron´s return changed his mind and his ways to some degree. Even he had seen in the end that the Great War had developed into a deadlock and a waste. Two sides of the same strength fighting without a end in sight, except total annihilation, one faction wiped out and the other possible so weakened that it would fall too. Of course he needed to be first brought back from madness to see that.

He didn´t knew how many of his counterparts in other realities had been lost to complete insanity until they finally destroyed themselves and everything around them and to be honest he didn´t want to.

Ironically in the end he got the Autobots out of his way just by leaving. His empire was now the dominating force in this galaxy.

The only question was would they continue the way of limited diplomacy and Cold War tactics or would they return to all out war one day. So far this strategy worked well and it wasn´t as if he and his troops didn´t have enough exercise whenever some wannabe conqueror, extremist species, warlord or terrorist came up to challenge them. Yes this way was so far far more promising of success.

"Our own exploration on this area is progressing as planned as well", Cyclonus informed him. "We have just established contact with a new universe. Our scout sonde is sending material."

"Good, let us see what is found", Galvatron replied.

The probe was beginning to show them pictures and readings of different planets and stars on the other side. It was a universe similar to their own, so far very promising.

But one reading was better than they had ever expected, one ship in a larger distance, but with obvious energy readings, they were different, somehow twisted, it was no surprise since this was an alternate reality, but it´s nature was still unmistakable, Decepticons.

Establishing a contact with their "brothers" would surely pay out.

After a short time they received a answer to their probe´s calls.

"This is Megatron, leader of the Decepticon empire, identify yourself", the message said.

Galvatron smiled.

"Megatron", he asked, "are you not a bit far away from Cybertron?"

"I don´t know who you are or how you know about our home-planet", came the reply. "This is a long range mission to find new energy resources for our world. Whoever you are, we would be glad to discuss a possible contact between our worlds and the trade of resources."

Meaning if you are a valuable target we will conquer you and take your energy for ourselves, Galvatron thought. His counterpart would soon learn that he was getting more than he had bargained for.

"We are very interested in such a `contact´", he said. "We have much to talk about."

End


End file.
